‘Still crying for justice’

January 18, 2013

First photo: University of Hawaii Maui College students Kai Fernandez (left) and Swan Kahookele help place 2,000 placards that symbolize the 1897 Ku'e Petitions on Thursday morning on the Great Lawn of the college. The petition, which contained about 40,000 signatures, was submitted to the U.S. Congress and opposed the annexation of Hawaii by the United States. When workers were finished setting up the display, Kaleikoa Kaeo, associate professor of Hawaiian studies at the college, spoke to an audience of around 100 about the petitions' significance. "The purpose of today's gathering is of education and to commemorate what occurred over a hundred years ago," he said. "But for me it's to celebrate the fact that Hawaiians today are still crying out for justice." The display will remain on campus through Saturday.

Second photo: Ohua Morando, director of the Na Pua No'eau program for gifted and talented Native Hawaiian students at the college, portrays Emma Nawahi in a re-enactment of a Hui Aloha Aina meeting in 1897 in Hilo by Native Hawaiians opposed to the annexation of Hawaii. The account of the meeting was based on a newspaper article, headlined "Strangling Hands upon a Nation's Throat," published in The San Francisco Call. The article was the only published Hui Aloha Aina meeting of Native Hawaiian women, such as Nawahi, who opposed the annexation of Hawaii.